


In This Balance of Time

by prince0froses



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-20
Updated: 2011-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-04 05:45:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prince0froses/pseuds/prince0froses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prose poem set amidst The Return of Bruce Wayne: On Bruce's journey from his penultimate stop in time to the Vanishing Point, he sees the universe unraveled, and the thread that ties him to it lies exposed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In This Balance of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily influenced by the song 'A Thousand Years' by Sting.

The tomb, the time machine are gone. The walls dissolve into the fraying fabric of space, cold stars burning in far out reaches that he can see stretched out forever. His feet move without him, of their own accord, upward along a misty green helix leading nowhere. At first, there is nothing but color. Red, blue. Red, blue.

 

Pieces fade in and out. Glimpses of a time covered in furs, hushed voices speaking hidden rites, arms raised towards the sun. In this place without words, looking skyward, feeling the weight of those golden rays press down on his chest like a forceful lover, and the image of azure eyes rushing unbidden to the forefront of his mind.

 

Another piece, another time; the echo of a cloak's whisper as thick wool encircles his shoulders. She calls him Mordecai from within the cabin, he has not donned his hat, he catches sight of his silhouette painted by candlelight on the splintered floor. Her voice is lost to him, his sight fixed upon his shadow's head, where he swears he spots a curl, a smile.

 

This time, only smell: salt, mold, smoldering torchlight pitch. He follows the burning further up the spiral stair; it leads to smells of ozone and anger, the way lit by two fiery crimson points beyond the horizon.

 

Swirling around him, faster, he climbs. A wooden table, cards in hand. Aces, eights. Guns drawn. Bullets springing slapdash off of blue. Deep blue seas, a ship. Cold hearts carved in green stone. Stone figures, a world won, crushed in his palm. A mocking rictus, death after death, a world lost but for one hope. Just one, beyond the edge of time and reason. If he keeps climbing, he thinks, he'll find it. Find him. Step after step, a thousand years, life after life within reach. It passes before his sight, painted in dots and lines, squared off in sections, pixels in motion, strange men wearing his face and living his life.

 

Cannon fodder. Child of fortune. Prince of Gotham. Demon in the Dark. Wanderer, judge, cunning Ulysses. Black as Midnight. Bright as day.

 

The spiral ends, and he is encased in metal, greeted by one who expects him. Everything laid bare: past, present, future. Bruce Wayne takes a breath, a moment's hesitation. To thwart Darkseid, he must follow through. But... he turns, gazing back at reality unwoven in his wake just before it seals for good. He hungers, he realizes, for one last glimpse at Everything. Because, as every path that every him has ever taken lay winding and reachable at his feet, Bruce saw the same thread, red, blue, tie it all together.

 

I'm on my way, Clark.


End file.
